Urgent Loosing weight

[maybug]

Hello everyone!

I will try to keep this as short as possible but there needs to be a lot of context.
So I had the whole saga on this forum about what was wrong with my parrot, like a year ago, because he had diarrhea where the feces test didn't pick up on any bacteria and his foot started swelling etc. But it turned out to be a case of bumblefoot and staph bacteria was found in a scab swab of the foot, and we healed it but it took a looong time. He lost only 5 grams in few months and gained it back quickly.

2 months ago it started happening again, the exact same way as last time, first diarrhea and then scabs on feet, and in the feces analysis there was staph bacteria. He was on antibiotics, creams for feet etc. He also takes milk thistle medicine because of suspected liver problems. And of course probiotics. After that we did another poop analysis, and we found a new bacteria, pasteurella. So we had to do a new antibiotic for 2 weeks, along with milk thistle medicine and probiotics. He finished his antibiotic few days ago so we will do another poop analysis in a week. Also, during all this, he takes vitamins too.

Now for my question: I weighted him before antibiotic therapy, and he was 120g (he was too chonky). I am not sure when exactly did this start but recently he started getting an extreme appetite, like he eats insane amount of food, and it is very clear that he craves fatty foods such as sunflower seeds, or when I give him chop, he focuses on pasta the most. So I was worried about him getting even more obese so I tried to get him to focus on vegetables and give him a bit less food etc. But then I weight him like 3 weeks later he started ab, he is 115g, and like 2 weeks after that, which is today, it's 113g. I will let him eat as much as he wants now but does anyone have experience with your parrot eating a lot but loosing weight: on antibiotics or milk thistle or probiotics or vitamins or just because of being sick etc.

Also, when my cockatiel started loosing weight I had told the vet, and he said that is to be expected but now it is a lot of weight and I'm getting worried, but I can consult with him earliest next week so I would like to hear your experience. The latest antibiotic he was on was doxycycline. Thanks.

 

[expressmailtome]

Bump.

 

[Pixiebeak]

This is your cockatiel? For me it helps when species, age and sex are given as party of the background.

Bumble foot , if that's what he has before can be hard to eliminate. Especially if it is caused by him putting more weight on one side of his body because of pain or issues with opposite side of the body . When it's both feet equally,can be a perch issue, or gout.

When you get inflammation in the foot , it can be different bacteria invaders each time making a home in the inflamed tissue that abnormal tissue is taken advantage of by whatever ever around. Or sometimes it's the same bacteria that wasn't able to be cleared completely. Because feet don't have a lot of muscle they are skin over ligament, bones tendon feet get less blood circulation heck I don't know how to say it very well , just infection in feet are hard to clear basically.

I looked at back thread , it looked like gout was involved as well , to many anyway...dud vet mention that it feels that ?

As far as weight loss, any time there is a health issue , infection, pain what ever they can loose weight from but feeling good, they can loose weight because of increased metabolic demand of fighting infection and healing. Metabolic demand can even increase five times base metabolism. And as you mentioned, sure dime antibiotics can cause feeling nauseous or cause imbalance in gut flora or yeast overgrowth any of which sn lead to weight loss. Or cause issues in organs like kidney and liver that excrete the antibiotics. Or if the infection is systemic it can but strain or inflammation on organs directly.

You will need to discuss with your veterinarian. I would probably recommend a x-ray to see kidneys, check for mass . But tests are always risk vs reward and determined between you and your veterinarian and the health, age tolerance of your bird. And blood work, cbc and metabolic chem panel, again risk rewards.

 

[maybug]

This is your cockatiel? For me it helps when species, age and sex are given as party of the background.

Bumble foot , if that's what he has before can be hard to eliminate. Especially if it is caused by him putting more weight on one side of his body because of pain or issues with opposite side of the body . When it's both feet equally,can be a perch issue, or gout.

When you get inflammation in the foot , it can be different bacteria invaders each time making a home in the inflamed tissue that abnormal tissue is taken advantage of by whatever ever around. Or sometimes it's the same bacteria that wasn't able to be cleared completely. Because feet don't have a lot of muscle they are skin over ligament, bones tendon feet get less blood circulation heck I don't know how to say it very well , just infection in feet are hard to clear basically.

I looked at back thread , it looked like gout was involved as well , to many anyway...dud vet mention that it feels that ?

As far as weight loss, any time there is a health issue , infection, pain what ever they can loose weight from but feeling good, they can loose weight because of increased metabolic demand of fighting infection and healing. Metabolic demand can even increase five times base metabolism. And as you mentioned, sure dime antibiotics can cause feeling nauseous or cause imbalance in gut flora or yeast overgrowth any of which sn lead to weight loss. Or cause issues in organs like kidney and liver that excrete the antibiotics. Or if the infection is systemic it can but strain or inflammation on organs directly.

You will need to discuss with your veterinarian. I would probably recommend a x-ray to see kidneys, check for mass . But tests are always risk vs reward and determined between you and your veterinarian and the health, age tolerance of your bird. And blood work, cbc and metabolic chem panel, again risk rewards.

Yes it is my cockatiel. Not sure about sex, we got him as a male and I continued referring him as a he but he might be a female because of hormonal behaviour more specific to females. Also the mutation. 10 year old cockatiel.

Thank you so much for responding. Gout was just suspected at one point but no, it was never gout, only pododermatitis and the bacteria was both times also in his feces when doing analysis so he had polyuria/diarrhea too. Now he is mostly fine (need to do final poop analysis next week to check if all bacteria is gone) but he seems to still be losing some weight, so I just wanted to see why would that be.

Loosing weight from metabolism demands and medicine makes a lot of sense, thank you, it will keep me peaceful until I talk to my vet and my cockatiel hopefully fully heals.

 

[Pixiebeak]

Is this one foot or both feet ?
When loosing weight, you do want to support, with healthy food if you can , but more seeds if n ended to maintain weight ,at least I would. I'm also big on useing baby bird formula to support sick ones . It's easy to digest high in calories and nutritious. Most adult birds like ...it's trickier with a species like a cockatiel. But you can try making some up thicker like Greek yogurt, and offer nice sbd warm and offer different ways , from your finger , mixed in with some veg , or their pellets or seed. See if you can tempt him to try it. Discard after half an hour as grows bacteria fast and only offer fresh made. At a guess if he would eat a half teaspoon or teaspoon of made up formula a day it would stabilize or increase weight more if he wanted and liked.